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Vance was in his early teens when his mom took him to the local middle school for his first yoga class. It was memorable, but not for any deep insight or new perspective gained.

“There was an old man right next to me who was farting so loud and I couldn’t control my laughter,” he says. “I kept looking at my mom, but she wouldn’t make eye contact with me because she was afraid she’d start laughing, too.”

It would be close to a decade until he ventured back his next class, this time at the request of a longtime family friend who had been asking him for years to join her. A dancer, he viewed yoga as a waste of time and not rigorous enough; what he found at that second class blew him away.

“The teacher crushed me in every sense of the word; emotionally, mentally and physically. In one class. I left thinking, ‘What IS this?’”

He was hooked, and by the next month he had enrolled in his first teacher training. Over the next three years, he went on to complete over 500 hours of certified teacher training and now teaches at studios around Los Angeles, including Saturday mornings at SoulPlay.

Ever wonder how your favorite teacher began their yoga journey? Our "How Teachers Became Teachers" series highlights how SoulPlay's instructors went from student to teacher. In this article, learn how Vance jumped into teacher training and never looked back.